Isaac Wurms, the second of the four children of Juda Wurms and Rebecca Vogel, was born on 26 June 1916 in Amsterdam. He was a compositor but changed trade later and became employed at the clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg as a raincoat sticker. He married on 30 October 1940 Sipora Menist, a daughter of Meijer Menist and Branca van Rheenen. She was a machine stitcher and was employed with Hollandia Kattenburg too.
Till his wedding, Isaac lived at home with his parents at Tugelaweg 95 1st floor, but after he was wed to Sipora, he moved in with her; she too lived at home with her parents at Oude Schands 50 2nd floor, where her father Meijer Menist earned his living as a bicycle- and parts dealer but later he had a shop selling radio’s and electric articles. Isaac and Sipora had no children.
Isaac Wurms (as a communist) was arrested in the night of 24 to 25 June 1941 during the so-called CPN-Aktion and transferred to Camp Schoorl and later sent on to Camp Amersfoort, where the first prisoners from Schoorl were brought in on 18 August 1941. He may have already belonged to the first group of 270 Dutchmen who were sent on 19 November 1941 from Kamp Amersfoort to the Neuengamme concentration camp (source Wikipedia), where he was given the prisoner number “Jude 6614”. In total, approximately 6,950 Dutchmen were sent to Neuengamme, including hundreds of communists arrested early in the war.
According to his death certificate, Isaac Wurms "deceased" on 26 June 1942 as a result of “Versagen von Kreislauf Herz - eitrige Rippenfellenzündung” which is equivalent to “heart failure due to purulent pleurisy”. Isaac Wurms is interred in the Dutch Field of Honor Hamburg, which is part of the Friedhof Ohlsdorf, located in the Ohlsdorf district of Hamburg.
Isaac’s spouse was employed in 1941 and 1942 as a machine stitcher at the clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg. At the website joodsamsterdam.nl/Hollandia Kattenburg (only Dutch language) also the raid on the Hollandia Kattenburg of 11 November 1942 is described.
The company also supplied the Wehrmacht during the occupation, which is why the Jews at Hollandia were exempt from transport, just like their families. They were seen as economically important. But in 1942 the number of Jews that had to be “supplied” from the Netherlands by order of Berlin was not high enough. Rauter, the SS man responsible for this in the Netherlands, succeeded in making some of the Jews at Hollandia Kattenburg suspicious. A raid followed and 130 of the 367 Jewish employees were arrested for so-called acts of sabotage and taken to the prison in Scheveningen. There they were so mistreated that they confessed to their “crimes” even though they had not committed them. (source website Jewish Amsterdam).
From the data as could be obtained from the Jewish Council registration card of Sipora Menist it appeared that she has belonged to the group of 130 co-workers , who were taken to the Scheveningen prison because of “sabotage”. After being “interrogated” she only arrived from Scheveningen in Westerbork on 26 November 1942. She was deported to Auschwitz with the so-called “Kattenburg transport” on 30 November and upon arrival there immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 3 December 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Juda Wurms and Meijer Menist; archive cards of Meijer Menist, Isaac Wurms and Sipora Menist; Info Camp Amersfoort/Isaac Wurms; the NIOD institute/Isaac Wurms; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Isaac Wurms and Sipora Wurmsn-Menist; the Wikipedia website Neuengamme; website ITS Arolosn/documents Isaac Wurms i.e. his death certificate no.392 made out in Hamburg on 5 June 1942 and the website joodsamsterdam.nl/Hollandia Kattenburg (only Dutch language).